MY ACCOUNT
Liverpool right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold labelled Mohamed Salah the best player in the world as he highlighted the forward’s desire to break every record possible this season.
Salah matched Jamie Vardy’s Premier League mark of scoring or assisting in 15 consecutive games after Diogo Jota had cancelled out Jonjo Shelvey’s strike for Newcastle United on Thursday.
Indeed, Liverpool achieved a club-record 32nd game in a row across all competitions in which they have scored with Jota’s first-half equaliser, while they also became the first side to 2,000 top-flight wins in English football after Alexander-Arnold’s stunner ensured a 3-1 victory at Anfield.
Much of Alexander-Arnold’s praise was directed towards Salah after the game, as he outlined the Egypt international’s determination to make history.
“That’s exactly how you can describe it, it’s mad,” he told BT Sport of Salah’s 15 consecutive top-flight games including a goal involvement.
“He’s the best player in the world right now, it goes without saying. He’s scoring and creating, doing everything – game in, game out.
“He’s having an incredible season, I think that’s on his mind he wants to break every record in the book and go and put his name in the history books; he’s done that from the first season he came in.
“He hasn’t taken his foot off the pedal from then on, and he’ll be looking to break every record he can again.”
Salah has 24 Premier League goal involvements to his name so far this season (15 goals, nine assists); only former Newcastle striker Alan Shearer has bettered that figure before Christmas in the competition, doing so for Blackburn Rovers in 1994-95 (25 – 16 goals, nine assists).
While Salah achieved another landmark, Liverpool were perhaps fortunate to be level as Jota’s equaliser came with Isaac Hayden down holding his head inside the area, although Alexander-Arnold does not think his side were at fault for playing on.
“When you’re playing, when you’re in and around their box, you’re not really looking at who’s down on the ground and who’s up,” he continued.
“You’re looking for your team-mates and finding them for who’s trying to score, you’re not focusing on the ground, but if it’s a head injury it’s down to the referee to stop it.
“At the end of the day, he hasn’t done that – we’ve played to the whistle, and we went and scored, that’s all you can really do. We haven’t cheated the game, we haven’t done anything unsportsmanlike, we’ve played to the whistle and scored from it.”
On his goal, Alexander-Arnold added: “I’ve been waiting for that [type of goal] for five years. I’ve had a few ones from the edge of box and dragged them. I’ve caught that one sweet and it nestled in the top corner, a sweet strike and put the game to bed.”
